National politics in Canada in 2002 were dominated by questions of party leadership. The differences were not confined to the opposition parties, however, and emerged in the governing Liberal Party. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien faced a revolt against his continuation as party chief. Many Liberals believed that it was time for Chrétien to step down. At age 68, he had been a member of Parliament, with a short break, since 1963, but he showed little vision for the country. His style of governance also had become increasingly authoritarian.

Disaffection in the Liberal Party gathered around Minister of Finance Paul Martin. He and Chrétien had been rivals in the contest to head the party in 1990, and, although Martin had been a mainstay of the Chrétien administration, there was bitter animosity between them. Besides the bitterness left from their 1990 rivalry, Chrétien believed that Martin was soft when it came to facing the threat posed by nationalists in Quebec. Martin barely concealed his ambition to succeed Chrétien. On June 2, citing “irreconcilable differences,” Chrétien dropped Martin from his cabinet. Martin remained in Parliament and immediately mustered support for his leadership bid.

The Liberals had planned to hold a convention to review Chrétien’s position as leader in February 2003. By the end of the summer, however, evidence had emerged that Martin’s supporters had won over a majority of Liberal MPs. At a closed-door caucus of the party on August 21, Chrétien dramatically announced that he would retire by February 2004. The 18-month period would give him time to fulfill his personal agenda, including the reform of the health care system, alleviation of child poverty, and protection of the environment. His plan was intended to avoid a divisive battle over his leadership and allow potential successors to come forward. The move might also damage Martin’s bid, however, for he would reach the age of 65 in the early months of 2004.

Although Chrétien’s decision resulted in a truce, it did not guarantee harmony beyond the short term. A contest between senior ministers might divert them from the task of carrying out the government’s agenda, a program that Chrétien said would constitute his legacy. The agenda items were costly for a government facing a shrinking surplus. Having balanced the budget five years earlier, the Chrétien administration prided itself on its ability to maintain fiscal discipline.

Chrétien’s own favourite successor emerged through a number of cabinet shuffles beginning on January 15, when 30 ministers were moved or replaced. John Manley (seeBiographies), minister for foreign affairs since October 2000, was promoted to deputy prime minister with a long list of executive responsibilities. Bill Graham, a backbencher who had chaired the standing committee on international affairs in the House of Commons, replaced Manley as foreign minister. Following Martin’s dismissal Manley also was given the finance minister’s post—an action that showed clearly that he possessed Chrétien’s confidence. The Liberals, with 169 seats in the 301-seat Commons, possessed a comfortable majority. Public opinion polls also showed that the Liberals held only slightly less support across the country than did the combined fragmented opposition.

Leadership changes occurred or were pending in Canada’s other political groupings. The official opposition—the Western-based Canadian Alliance—had been damaged severely in 2001 by a bitter dispute over the performance of its chief, Stockwell Day, who was challenged by several contenders, including former party strategist Stephen Harper. Harper, who believed in smaller government, strict fiscal management, and policies that treated Quebec on the same basis as other provinces, won 55% of the votes of Alliance members in a mail-in ballot. After replacing Day, Harper went on to win a parliamentary seat in Calgary on May 13, and eight days later he was sworn in as leader of the opposition. Although the Alliance’s 63 Commons seats made it the largest opposition party, polls showed that its national support stood at only 14%. Harper sought to remain true to the party’s founding principles, which were strongly endorsed in the West, but he needed to broaden the Alliance’s appeal. He also had to grapple with the split among conservative voters. Harper had long pressed for cooperation with the historic Progressive Conservative Party, but the PCP rejected the Alliance’s overtures.

The PCP, with 14 members of Parliament, was faced with selecting a new leader when former prime minister Joe Clark, who had led the party since 1998, announced his retirement on August 6. At 63, with 30 years of parliamentary and ministerial experience, Clark was a veteran of Canadian politics. In spite of strenuous efforts to rebuild the party after its disastrous defeat in 1993, the PCP commanded the support of only 15% of the electorate. Clark believed that it was time for him to give up the struggle.

With the parties of the centre and right facing leadership choices, Canada’s New Democratic Party (NDP) also moved to elect a new leader. Through the 1990s the party had struggled to define its role. In 1995 the NDP had turned to Alexa McDonough to serve as its leader. McDonough had sought to move the party to a more middle-of-the-road position. In 2002 the NDP held 14 seats in the Commons, but its popular vote across the country was stalled at 12%. Faced with these discouraging facts, McDonough tendered her resignation. Canada’s fourth opposition party, the Bloc Québécois (BQ), the federalist arm of the Quebec separatist movement, seemed a spent force in 2002. As Quebec’s push for independence declined, the 37 BQ members seemed unsure of their purpose.

The fractured political opposition in Canada worked to the clear advantage of Chrétien and the Liberals. Despite ministerial scandal and financial irregularities, the Liberal government remained impregnable. Although opposition parties had regularly demanded an accounting from the Liberal government, they found difficulty in defining political positions for themselves.

The Economy

The economy moved forward steadily in 2002. The turmoil on the stock markets brought down the value of many Canadian equities but did not interrupt the economy’s growth. The proportion of Canadians who held stocks was half that in the United States, and there were no corporate scandals in Canadian business. Job creation was strong, with the unemployment rate hovering above 7%. The consumer price index stood at 3.2% in October, pushed upward by energy costs. For the economy on the whole, the increase in gross domestic product was expected to rise 3–4% to the end of 2003. This upsurge gave Canada the strongest rate of growth among the Group of Seven industrialized nations. Canada regained the Triple-A credit rating that it had lost in 1993–94, when the federal operating deficit had stood at $42 billion. Since 1998 Ottawa’s budget had enjoyed a surplus.

A severe drought, reminiscent of the dust-bowl conditions of the 1930s, settled over the Western prairies in 2002. Overall wheat production was expected to decline 40% from 2001, which in itself was considered an off year. To add to the farmers’ misery, an infestation of grasshoppers consumed surviving crops. The federal and provincial governments stepped in to help, but the most heartening assistance came from farmers in Eastern Canada, who sent several hundred railcars of surplus hay to distressed farmers in the west.

Foreign Affairs

Reverberations from the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States spurred the government of Canada to strengthen the country’s security and join in the international coalition against global terrorism. Canada took swift steps to make a contribution to the international effort. In January 850 troops were prepared for service in Afghanistan to work under U.S. Army command in the search for al-Qaeda fighters. This was the largest deployment of Canadian combat forces since the Korean War. The troops, who were stationed in the Kandahar area of southern Afghanistan, were sent to guard the Kandahar airport and to investigate sites taken from the Taliban. A naval detachment of six vessels to patrol the Arabian Sea and a small group of transport and surveillance aircraft brought another 1,700 personnel to the troubled region. The overall size of Canadian defense forces, combined with the earlier commitment of 2,000 peacekeepers to Bosnia and Herzegovina, made it difficult for Canada to continue its military involvement in Afghanistan. The force was withdrawn in August.

Satisfaction with the mission was marred by an unfortunate incident on April 17, when four Canadian soldiers were killed by a 227-kg (500-lb) bomb dropped by a U.S. Air National Guard F-16 pilot. The Canadians were on a night-training exercise near Kandahar. The two countries set up boards of inquiry to investigate the accident, which apparently resulted from the failure of the U.S. pilot to observe his force’s rules of engagement.

Canada did not adopt a firm position on a possible United States strike on Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein and stop his alleged accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. At the United Nations, Canada had long criticized Iraq for its refusal, after 1998, to accept UN weapons inspectors. Foreign Minister Graham declared that Iraq’s barring of the inspectors suggested that it had something to hide. Graham cautioned that the United States should not intervene unilaterally but should seek UN approval for any action taken. It was also important that the United States present evidence of Hussein’s stockpile of weapons. Chrétien made it clear that Canada would not participate in military action against Iraq unless it were carried out under UN auspices.

Canada played host to the Group of Eight summit of leading industrialized nations on June 26–27. The meeting, in Kananaskis, Alta., deep in the Canadian Rockies, was undisturbed by the violent demonstrations that had taken place at past summits. About 200 demonstrators gathered outside a security checkpoint, however, and blocked the admission of U.S. and Japanese delegates. Chrétien, who chaired the meeting, hoped to focus on assistance to Africa contingent upon African states’ maintaining democratic political systems and protecting human rights. Earlier it had been proposed that wealthy nations pledge an additional $12 billion in development assistance annually, of which half would go to Africa. At the Kananaskis summit this objective was reaffirmed but with the crucial qualification that the new aid could go to Africa. Canada and several other countries at the meeting agreed to open their domestic markets to most African products. U.S. Pres. George W. Bush then proposed to raise $20 billion over the next 10 years to decommission nuclear arms and place strict security around nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons storage sites. Bush’s plan proved contentious, and no firm commitment was made by the leaders.

Canada’s declaration that it would ratify the Kyoto Protocol to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases in 2002 proved controversial but was achieved by a parliamentary vote on December 10. There were sharp disagreements between the provinces regarding the costs of approving Kyoto. The most vociferous opposition came from Ralph Klein, premier of oil-and-gas-rich Alberta. The province’s energy production had been hurt by federal regulation in the 1980s, and Klein had no intention of allowing Ottawa to impose controls on his province again. Since the Canadian provinces owned the natural resources within their boundaries, their cooperation with federal regulation appeared vital for the implementation of the accord.

Trade relations between Canada and the U.S., each the other’s best customer, remained troubled in 2002. The chief issue was the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision to impose final duties averaging 27% on $10 billion worth of Canadian construction lumber exported to the U.S. Canadian lumber exports to the U.S. in June, the first full month after the duties were confirmed, fell by 40%.

Canada also was unhappy, as were many other countries, with the U.S. approval of $190 billion in agricultural subsidies over 10 years, a plan signed by President Bush on May 13. Canadian grain exports would be hurt by this form of protection.